Raffael Guerreiro is back! The Portuguese player joined in training today for the first time since the beginning of November: "I felt really good. It is now my target to take it step by step and to be ready for the next league game."

Thomas Tuchel had given the versatile midfield player the title "problem solver". Guerreiro had been a very important factor of the team up to match day 6 - BVB had dropped to third in the table after a 0-2 defeat in Leverkusen. Then he got injured whilst on international duty and he could only be part of the team in the 0-0 against Schalke and in the 5-2 victory over Hamburg (match days 9 and 10), before he was out injured with a back problem right up to the winter break.

Ousmane Dembélé said: "we missed him because of his strength in the way he plays, his speed and the way he can control the ball. We really missed him." Guerreiro also missed his team mates. The 23 year old Portuguese international said: "it was very difficult watching from the sidelines. I tried not to get too down about it." If everything goes to plan, he could be back on the pitch for BVB for the first league game of 2017 in Bremen in two weeks - and solve problems.

„Good test against a Champions League team“

Yesterday, on Saturday, BVB played PSV Eindhoven still without Guerreiro and deserved to convincly win by 4-1. André Schürrle commented: "it was quite a good test against a Champions League team and we definitely showed where we are at." Ousmane Dembélé added: "that was pretty good. We want to find our rhythm again quickly, we want to win challenges, so that we can prepare as well as possible during our training camp for the second half of the season." The Frenchman has some quite ambitious targets for the second half of the season: "we want to get through the whole second half of the season without losing a game and we want to end up in the top three."

The Black Yellows want to lay the  foundations for this in Marbella. Schürrle added: "everyone is playing their part, even though it is very intensive. It's a lot of fun this way!" Boris Rupert